|
LVTC Happenings!
A monthly report of events and resources for our passionate, growing local multisport community.
| | |
Welcome to the July LVTC Newsletter!
If you've lived through a Las Vegas summer, you know that this is the time of year when triathlon can start feeling more like work than play. The alarm goes off well before sunrise, long rides end before the pavement gets too hot, and even an easy run can quickly become a battle against triple-digit temperatures.
It's also the time of year when it is easiest to lose sight of why we do this.
That's why the theme of this month's newsletter is Fun is Fast. Thanks to our expert last month, Bailey Hinz, who used this phrase.
At first glance, that might sound like a contradiction. How can fun and performance go together? Yet as you'll see throughout this issue, they are inseparable. Whether it's Hilary Mauch's perspective as a coach, Bob Gamble's reflections for a new triathlete, Dr. Griselda Lloyd's insights on mental health, Melissa Sheridan's Vegas Grit story, or the President’s Corner, everyone arrives at the same conclusion from a different direction ... athletes who enjoy the process are the ones most likely to stay healthy, stay consistent, and ultimately perform their best.
Whether you're training for a fall race or simply trying to stay active through another Vegas summer, we hope you'll find something that motivates and encourages you.
So, get your training in before the sun gets too high, cheer on your training partners, celebrate every victory ... big or small ... and remember why you fell in love with this sport in the first place.
Have fun ... because fun is fast.
#vegasgrit #strongertogether #fearless #lvtrifamily #enjoythejourney #thrive #thatsthevegasway
| |
2026 Membership
Club memberships run from January 1st, 2026 to December 31st, 2026. All club events are free with membership!
Our multi-sports events are typically between 50 and 75 athletes. We are not ‘… just another triathlon.’ Instead, we have a great ‘grassroots’ feel to our events during which members can get to know members.
All levels of athletes are welcome at our events. We have athletes completing their first event and have even had professional triathletes in our events!
But we offer more than just our four multi-sport events. We have clinics, podcasts, non-tri get-togethers, and help members connect with each other through social media channels.
We have the following membership categories:
- Single membership: $75
- Family membership: $95 (Up to 4 immediate family members. Family members must reside in the same residence or shared residence.)
- Student membership: $40 (Full time students only)
| | |
Club Hashtags
Use these hashtags in your social media posts to help share the Las Vegas Triathlon Club themes and highlight our endurance community culture:
#vegasgrit – This theme is about showing up with purpose ... training smart, supporting each other, and pushing through challenges in a way that fits your journey. It’s not about being the toughest person in the room...it’s about persistence, adaptability, and community.
#strongertogether – This theme reflects the essence of our triathlon community: achieving more through unity, supporting one another, and celebrating the shared journey of multisport life.
#fearless – This represents the beauty of taking on challenges of multisport and enjoying the rewards!
#thatsthevegasway – We made this theme as a way to point out the things that members do (e.g., loaning bikes, helping others, ...) that promote our club culture.
#enjoythejourney – This theme was selected to emphasize the importance of enjoying training and the overall process of preparing for an event/race.
#lvtrifamily – This theme was to emphasize the importance of our endurance community and to recognize that, even though triathlon is an individual sport, we never do this alone!
#thrive – This was our 2023 theme that was selected to emphasize that triathlon should bring value to all aspects of our lives.
| |
|
Sponsors
The Las Vegas Triathlon Club is a 501c(3) organization that is 100% operated by volunteers. Our annual operating budget is about $10,000-$12,000. Sponsorships are incredibly helpful for us to meet cover our operating costs and keep membership prices reasonable. You can read more about sponsorships HERE.
Thank you to our 2026 sponsors:
- Core Mental Health Services
- Elevation Physical Therapy
- Respect The Distance Coaching
- UNLV SPEED Lab
- UNLV Department of Kinesiology & Nutrition Sciences
| | |
Las Vegas Triathlon Club Events
Each year, the Las Vegas Triathlon Club hosts four multisport events. You must be a LVTC member to participate in the events.
The dates for our 2026 events are:
| | | Sunday, 4/12/26 | Sprint Triathlon | RESULTS | | Sunday, 5/10/26 | Sprint Triathlon | RESULTS | | Saturday, 6/6/26 | Aquabike | RESULTS
| | Saturday, 8/22/26
LAST EVENT! | Super Sprint Triathlon | Swim 300m, Bike 4 miles, Run 1.5 miles | | | |
All results are on our website.
Athletes accumulate points at each event for our LVTC Points Series Awards at the end of the season. You can see the previous winners at this link: Points Series Winners.
We also have a variety of events throughout the year. You can check upcoming events at our Las Vegas Triathlon Club Calendar.
Continue to check our Facebook Group for other happenings in our endurance community.
Here are the results of our 2025 events:
| |
|
Swim Clinic
WHEN: Sat., August 8, 2026
WHERE: Heritage Aquatic Center on Racetrack
TIME: Swim filming to begin @ 7:30 AM followed by Classroom Analysis which should finish around 9:30 AM. OPTIONAL Post-Analysis pool session for individual technique suggestions (often the most profitable part of the clinic) is available (the pool is open until noon so there will be plenty of time for this).
CLASSROOM DISCUSSION to INCLUDE: the Most Efficient Freestyle Technique, your freestyle technique, what changes in your freestyle technique would be most helpful (what to work on 1st), freestyle weights/strength training, freestyle flexibility, body position, most propulsive arms & body freestyle technique & getting ready for a wetsuit race
FOR: New Triathlon swimmers, Experienced Triathlon swimmers, those who want to check their progress on technique changes they are trying to make........MOST Triathlon swimmers can improve their swimming & this is an opportunity to help accomplish that.
GROUP SIZE: There have been 3 previous Swim Clinics & these tend to be 10-ish (more or less) participants in size though more can be accommodated.
INQUIRIES: For suggestions, comments or questions you can e-mail: rscic@hotmail.com
More info HERE!
| |
Triathlete Performance Workshop
Hosted by The Movement Lab
This workshop is designed to help triathletes discover the overlooked physical limitations, weak links, and underworked muscle groups that may be preventing them from reaching their next level of performance.
Join us at The Movement Lab for a FREE triathlon performance workshop open to Las Vegas Triathlon Club members. This hands-on session is designed to help triathletes identify underworked muscle groups, movement limitations, and performance deficits that may be slowing them down or increasing injury risk.
During this workshop, we will break down common weak links that affect endurance athletes and teach practical strategies to improve efficiency, power, durability, and overall performance across all three disciplines.
What We Will Cover:
- Strength deficits affecting your swim
- Cycling muscle imbalances and power production strategies
- Running stability, and performance-focused exercises
- Underactive muscle groups commonly missed in traditional endurance training
- Injury prevention strategies for triathletes
- Strength and mobility drills you can immediately implement into your training
This is not just a lecture. Participants will go through guided movement assessments, exercise demonstrations, and performance-focused drills designed specifically for endurance athletes. Whether you are preparing for your first sprint triathlon or chasing a PR in a long-course event, this workshop will help you train smarter and move better.
Date: Sat., August 15, 2026
Time: 9:00-11:00 AM
Location:
The Movement Lab
8475 S Eastern Ave #105A
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Cost: FREE for Las Vegas Triathlon Club Members. RSVP info to follow.
Come learn how better movement, strength, and muscle activation can translate directly into faster and more efficient racing.
| |
Socials/Training Events/Education
| |
Check out and subscribe to our calendar feature (a continuing work-in-progress):
Las Vegas Triathlon Club Calendar
These are the dates for our 2026 Club events:
-
4/12/26: Sprint Triathlon - RESULTS
- 8/22/26: Saturday - Super Sprint Tri
Sprint Triathlon:
Swim 750m; Bike 20km; Run 5km.
Aquabike:
Swim 750m; Bike 20km.
Super Sprint Triathlon:
Swim ~300m, Bike 4 miles, Run 1.5 miles.
Continue to check our Facebook Group for any additional get-togethers that may be happening, and for locals who are training in town or down at Lake Mead. Post your workouts!
Thanks everyone!
| |
Coach's Corner:
Fun is Fast — But Fast Isn't Always Fun
Let's start with the good news.
Fun is fast. Genuinely. When you're enjoying the sport, when training feels purposeful, when you cross a finish line having given everything you had…boy, there is nothing like it. The PRs come. The goals get checked off. The numbers climb in ways you never thought possible. That feeling is real and it is earned and you should absolutely celebrate every single bit of it.
But here's what nobody really warns you about. That feeling? It can quietly become an obsession. And obsession has a way of taking the best thing in your life and slowly making it the hardest thing to enjoy.
I know because I've been there.
When Fast Stops Being Fun
There was a race where I had everything mapped out. My numbers, my targets, my splits. I had done the work. I knew what I was capable of. And I had two of my most important people that day; my husband and my best friend. Both standing out on that course for over twelve hours in the heat, cheering me on every chance they could get.
And how did I repay them? With negativity.
Every time they found me on course and tried to lift me up, I was so deep in my own dark place about not hitting my numbers that I couldn't receive a single ounce of their support. I pushed it away.
I pushed them away.
Afterward they sat me down and said something I needed to hear: “we came out here to support you but your attitude through the whole race made that really hard. If this is what this sport does to you, we don't know if we can keep doing this with you.”
That was my wake-up call.
The Obsession Nobody Talks About
Chasing performance is not a bad thing. Setting goals, tracking data, wanting to improve, that's all part of being a competitive athlete. But there's a line between healthy pursuit and obsession, and it's easier to cross than you think.
You know you've crossed it when a bad split ruins an entire race experience. When the people cheering for you become background noise to the voice in your head cataloguing everything that's going wrong. When a finish line that would have made your younger self cry with joy feels like a disappointment because it wasn't fast enough.
The sport didn't change. Your relationship with it did.
Gratitude Is Part of the Performance
Here's what I want you to sit with for a moment. A perfect race day in triathlon is genuinely rare. The temperature, the wind, the water conditions, your nutrition, your sleep, your legs, your mind - everything has to line up. And occasionally, magnificently, it does. And when it does and you have a breakthrough day, there are about a thousand variables that conspired in your favor to make that happen.
Do you remember to be grateful for that? Or do you immediately move the goalpost?
Going fast is a privilege. The fitness, the time, the support system, the people standing out in the heat for twelve hours just to see your face for thirty seconds, none of that is guaranteed. None of it should be taken for granted.
The Real Goal
So yes. Go fast. Chase your podium. Hit your numbers. Set audacious goals and work relentlessly toward them. That part of the sport is beautiful, and you should never apologize for being competitive.
But go fast with joy. Go fast with gratitude. Go fast in a way that the people who show up for you actually want to come back next time.
Because at the end of a long season, the finish times will fade from memory. What stays is how this sport made you feel and how you made the people around you feel while you were doing it.
Fun is fast. Make sure fast is still fun.
~Hilary Mauch
| |
Have you met these Coaches?
Triathlon race season is here. Do you have a coach? Are you looking for one? Well, the Las Vegas Triathlon Club is going to try to help make some connections.
Earlier this year, we sent out a google form to try to capture our local coaching expertise. We had a number of coaches (all are members of Las Vegas Triathlon Club) respond and we have featured them on this webpage:
Las Vegas Triathlon Club Coaches
We are going to continue to highlight coaches on our web page – if you would like to be part of that, please fill out this form.
| | |
Prez Corner:
Fun is Fast
With over four decades of participating in triathlon, one thing stands out more than any training method, race strategy, gadget, or workout trend: Fun is fast.
Somewhere along the way, many athletes begin to believe that improvement requires suffering ... that every workout should leave them exhausted ... that training only "counts" if it hurts. That is not true.
The athletes who stay in this sport for years, and often decades, are usually the ones who genuinely enjoy the process. They look forward to the morning ride, the group run, the open water swim, the post-workout coffee, and the race-day conversations as much as they enjoy the finish line.
When you love the sport, training stops feeling like an obligation and starts feeling like something you get to do. Perhaps discipline isn't about forcing yourself to train ... perhaps it is simply choosing not to do the things that get in the way of your goals. What if the goal isn't to become better at suffering through training ... but to become better at enjoying training?
When training is fun, consistency becomes easy. And consistency is where improvement lives.
Another trap I see athletes fall into that takes the fun out of the sport is comparison to others.
"I want to beat so-and-so."
"I want to ride like that person."
"I want to be as fast as them."
The problem is that chasing someone else's goals rarely provides lasting motivation because those goals belong to someone else. The only meaningful comparison is with the person you were yesterday. Don’t get me wrong … If we are shoulder to shoulder and the finish line is in sight, I am going to win. Competition can be a fun way to push you further and faster than you thought possible... especially when you want your competitors to have their best day, because that gives you the opportunity to have yours.
Train to become the best version of yourself. Race to become the best version of yourself. If that happens, the results take care of themselves.
Encouraging other athletes, helping them, and celebrating their successes is not weakness and it is not defeatist. It is one of the best ways to elevate your own performance. I’ve been fortunate enough to land on the podium for age group and overall place … but looking back at my races, the proudest memories are the races where I gave everything I had on race day … not the finish place. The greatest failures were also not determined by finish place or time or even DNFs … the greatest disappointments were the races that I did not push myself as best I could have on that day.
So as we move through the heart of the season, remember: Have fun.
Enjoy the training.
Celebrate your victories and the victories of your training partners.
Cheer for your competitors.
Become the best version of yourself.
Because in triathlon, and in life ... fun is fast.
#vegasgrit #strongertogether #thatsthevegasway #fearless #enjoythejourney #lvtrifamily
~John Mercer
| |
The New Triathlete
The Secret Ingredient
I make wickedly good chili. I’ve won chili cook-offs with it, and the usual comment I get when people try it is a “Wow,” delivered with a look of curiosity that says, “What’s in here?” It’s got all of the standard ingredients – tomato sauce, pinto and kidney beans, onions, browned and seasoned meat – the same things that most people put in their chili. But my chili is different in a couple of different ways. For one thing, I use a variety of different ingredients that make the taste somewhat complex – serrano, poblano, jalapeno, and ancho chilis, and I use a mix of ground beef, pork, and turkey, and a variety of spices that adds more complexity to the taste. And I add one unorthodox “secret ingredient.” You can’t taste the secret ingredient, but it makes a difference, especially when combined with the variety of the other ingredients.
If you look at the training menu of most triathletes, you see the same fundamental ingredients: long, slow zone 2 workouts for an aerobic base, strength workouts for muscle balance, power and injury prevention, and technique training for efficiency and neuromuscular conditioning. But when you look at seasoned triathletes, the ones who have been consistently doing triathlons for more than a couple of seasons, you notice something about their training menu. They not only mix things up by adding yoga, breathwork, mountain biking, massage, etc., they have a “secret ingredient” in their training that keeps them going and keeps them coming back. The secret ingredient? These athletes have fun.
Too many of us, myself included, have treated triathlon training as a second job – something you must do instead of something you want to do. This not only leads to burnout, it leads to resentment. No one likes to be forced to do what they don’t enjoy. You may have the perfect blend of training modalities but forget how important it is to have fun. So go for rides without worrying about Strava. Swim for the feeling of gliding through the water and don’t look at the clock. Cruise on a winding trail run and leave your watch at home. Meet a triathlon friend for coffee, talk about life and how you value their friendship. Fun is the secret ingredient that makes it all worthwhile.
~Bob Gamble
| |
Where in the World Has Our TRI Club Raced?
Check out the map below to see where our athletes have raced!
| |
The Evidence-Based Triathlete
Check out our previous episodes:
| | |
Vegas Grit Member Spotlight - Melissa Sheridan
In this new feature in our newsletter, we highlight a member that exemplifies our club theme: Vegas Grit. Melissa Sheridan is our Vegas Grit Spotlight for this month!
My journey into triathlon began with a nudge from my gym trainer, who recognized my budding fondness for mountain biking and suggested I try an Xterra. After the loss of my horse, I was seeking a new challenge, and training for the Xterra in Tahoe seemed like the perfect fit. However, I started with regular triathlons as the mountain biking portion was initially daunting. Balancing the three disciplines has been my biggest challenge, particularly finding time for cycling, which is both my weakest area and a crucial component of the race.
Recently, I completed my first “big” race in Sonoma, where I achieved personal records in both bike speed/time and 5k time, finishing 77th out of over 300 participants. The experience was so exhilarating, I am extremely proud of myself for completing it and having fun while doing so!
“Vegas Grit” embodies our resilience in the harshest training conditions and our vibrant community spirit. While our local “flat” trails might seem unremarkable to some, they are a testament to our strength. The Sonoma race, with its rolling hills, was manageable for me, even as others seemed intimidated. The intense heat demands early morning training, but Vegas athletes thrive in these conditions. Our training environment, often avoided by others, truly defines “Vegas Grit.”
For newcomers to triathlon, I advise simply signing up and embracing the experience. Enjoy the journey, as your greatest competitor is yourself. Crossing the finish line without regrets and forming lasting friendships are rewards beyond measure. My current goals include completing Pumpkinman in October, tackling an Olympic race next year (maybe do that Xterra), aiming for a top 50 or 25 finish in a sprint race, and breaking the 2-hour mark at the club races to become more competitive.
| | |
Vegas Experts: Dr. Griselda Lloyd
We have some fantastic local triathlon expertise. In this regular feature, one of our local experts provides some advice for triathletes. Our expert this month is Griselda Lloyd, PhD, LMFT. She is a seasoned mental health provider and educator with over 13 years of clinical experience. She started and is currently practicing at CORE Mental Health Services.
Griselda (Dr. Lloyd) started participating in triathlons for her own mental and physical health journey and has loved it since she started.
Triathlons can be fast and fun but training and working on becoming fast is not always fun. The sport of triathlon is a mood and mental health booster; however, the repetitive nature and high volume may lead to burnout or mental fatigue. Both of which impact an athlete’s endurance performance and level of motivation. As triathletes, a balanced approach to training and daily life are needed. Developing a health relationship with training and the sport is personal and according to sports psychology theories is mainly driven by an athlete’s goals.
Things to consider when developing a health relationship with training to avoid burnout or mental fatigue, while maintaining the fun of the sport:
1. Have realistic goals – identify if you can train on your own or need a coach. Is your goal achievable.
2. Joining a club - connecting with other athletes helps in developing a community and resources such as expert advice, meeting coaches, and skills development.
3. Training with friends - adds a social element to training. It helps to boost motivation, accountability, and keeps things fun.
4. Focus on what you can control - We cannot always control what happens outside of our training. Life happens. Stay flexible and adjust when needed.
5. Listen to your body - Recognize that you will have good days, not so good days, and down days. Sometimes taking a mental health day or modifying a short intense workout into a long, slow one where you can zone out is exactly what you need.
Ultimately, you should be having fun training and racing. If you are not re-evaluate your goals and call a friend.
| | |
The Las Vegas Triathlon Club Legacy Scholarship
On 12/10/20, five Las Vegas athletes were killed when an impaired driver ran into a group of cyclists. The athletes were Tom Trauger, Erin Ray, Aksoy Ahmet, Michael Murray, and Gerrard Nieva. These five athletes are endearingly referred to as TEAMG (Tom, Erin, Aksoy, Michael, and Gerrard).
Following their deaths, there has been an upswell of community support for the families and survivors directly affected. There has also been a renewed call for action to create a safer environment for our athletes to train here in the Greater Las Vegas Valley.
The purpose of the Las Vegas Triathlon Club Legacy Scholarship is to honor the legacy of TEAMG as well as any local triathletes who have been killed or injured as result of distracted driving. The Legacy Scholarship is designed to encourage involvement in triathlon by new athletes, youth athletes, and/or continuing athletes in special need.
More information about the scholarship can be found at this page.
The list of our Scholarship Awardees can be found at these pages:
2026 Winners
2025 Winners
2024 Winners
2023 Winners
2022 Winners
This scholarship continues thanks to a generous donation by an anonymous donor.
| | | | |
